


scars

by werewoofteeth



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Scars, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28745280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werewoofteeth/pseuds/werewoofteeth
Summary: Dick has a lot of scars.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	scars

Dick has scars. He has _lots_ of scars. It comes with the territory of doing hero work and especially doing it as long as he's been doing it. Most of them are general wear and tear, scratches and scrapes that are far from memorable. Others Dick still remembers getting with crystal clarity. 

The long, jagged one on the back of his left thigh for example. It's old and faded now, the surgical marks around it aren't even visible anymore and no one really notices it among the rest of the ones he has now. 

He's seven when his parents die. He knows English but he doesn't _know_ it. He can understand it better than he can speak it which is probably a good thing considering his parents’ deaths leave him completely nonverbal. Dick only understands half of what anyone is telling him at any given time and even that's being generous. Every interaction is a nightmare waiting to happen and Dick desperately tries to avoid all of them. 

He has no idea what the headmaster of the orphanage tells him ever, his Jersey accent is too heavy for Dick to make out even the words he _does_ know. All he knows is that he's in trouble for everything, always. Dick is afraid to do anything and everything. 

Then one day, he sees his parents. Dick's so alarmed and distraught, too young to understand what's happening and so desperate to have _anything_ familiar again, he follows them. The fence that surrounds the yard they're ‘allowed’ to ‘play’ in is by far the thing that keeps Dick here the least. He scales it with ease but the old thing is far from suitable. As he jumps down, the damaged top tears the back of his leg wide open. 

There's so much wrong with Dick at that point, he doesn't even notice. He's hungry and tired and cold, he's hyper focused on his parents and wants nothing more than to just feel _affection_ again, that he doesn't feel the pain in his leg. He limps as he blindly follows the illusion of his mother and father. Five minutes turns to ten turns to thirty and Dick trails blood behind him the entire time. 

The city is dark and cold and eventually, Dick realises he hasn't seen his parents in a long time and he's now lost. He's been to Gotham before while traveling with the circus but he's never actually been _out_ of the circus. It's not the pain or cold or hunger that finally gets to him but his own frustration. His crying draws two kinds of attention. 

The first is bad. Dick is terrified of people, both adults and his own age, so when the three men seem to come out of nowhere, he instinctively cowards away from them. They beckon him closer and Dick does the exact opposite, only making them upset. A man snatches his arm and yanks him off his feet entirely. Dick isn't even aware that fighting back is something he can do. 

The second is a different kind of nightmare. Dick doesn't see the fourth man but he hears him. It's all rough and low and gravely but he can make out, “put him down,” and then, even meaner, “ _carefully_ ”. 

Dick is put down. Carefully. 

One man bolts for it and that's when everything kicks off. It all happens so quick and without warning, Dick isn't fully sure what _it_ is. All he knows is that the three men bothering him are suddenly on the ground. He's rightfully startled when the fourth drops down from _somewhere_ but it's not really a man. At least from Dick’s angle, it doesn't look like a man. It just looks like a big shadowy figure with pointy ears. It sort of reminds Dick of some of the sideshows the circus would travel with and that's the only reason he doesn't immediately feel the same fear of the man. 

But he crouches down to Dick's level and Dick reels back violently. The figure grabs the front of his shirt and holds him steady. He says something but Dick doesn't understand. He says more things. Dick still doesn't understand. English is nothing but a distant language Dick used to sorta know right now. 

Dick starts to panic. He knows from experience the more he doesn't understand, the angrier people are with him. A shadowy bat-like figure who has already shown so much violence and is now angry with him because Dick hasn't met anyone in nearly a year that _hasn't_ been mad at him. The bat stops talking as Dick comes to tears again. 

What Dick does understand is the quiet, not as rugged, “you don't understand me, do you?” He shakes his head adamantly. The bat lets go of his shirt but Dick has lost so much blood, he can't stand on his own. He's grabbed swiftly, but carefully, under the arms and the bat says something soft and careful. No, Dick doesn't understand but the bat picks him up in his arms and all Dick can do is cling to him. 

It's been nearly a year since Dick has had any sort of affectionate or loving or even _friendly_ physical contact with anyone. The cape is drawn over him and Dick holds on and tries to stop crying. 

The bat follows the trail of blood back to the orphanage. 

Dick expects to be dropped off there and the bat to disappear back into the darkness but he doesn't. The bat stays and the caretakers are too afraid of him to be mad at Dick. He stays as they call a real doctor and is still around when they put him under to fix his leg. 

The bat is gone when he wakes up but Dick finds out he's been adopted in the time since. A nice man by the name Bruce Wayne takes him home. 

The orphanage closes soon after. 

Or the lichtenberg one on his back. This one's a little less faded. It's still fairly old but it doesn't heal like most scars do. The center of it is right in the middle of his back, just below his shoulder blades, right on his spine. It blooms out in every direction, covering a lot of his back but not enough to wrap around his sides. 

He's fifteen. He’s focused explaining something to Jason and Artemis from his last mission. It's something formulaic. A rare moment where the three of them are having a serious discussion about how they're going to handle something. 

Then Wally's there. 

Dick can't remember if someone called him over or not but suddenly he has both arms around Dick's chest. In retrospect, it's likely Wally had just found out Dick was home and came to greet him. Wally can be very tactile without warning, especially with Dick who doesn't usually mind very much. It's a little different today. 

Initially, Dick doesn't react. He knows he's hurt but it happens so instantaneously, his brain can't register the pain nearly as fast as it happens. Before it even hurts, he can hear Wally’s panicked, “holy shit, are you okay”. _Then_ he feels the white, searing hot pain in his back.

Dick has been shocked before. With how often and in depth he works with computers and wiring, it's bound to happen now and again. That's nothing like this. This feels like someone touched him with molten iron. The pain alone causes him to completely lose vision for a couple seconds. Dick has just enough articulation left to be able to put down whatever he's holding before he slowly gets down on his knees. 

Everything hurts and it's hard to think and all he can hear is Jason and Artemis yelling at Wally. “You need to stop fuckin’ touching people without warning especially if you can't control your fuckin’ shit, West!” He can smell his suit burning. No, wait, that's his skin. 

Dick remembers thinking how glad he was that his suit is naturally grounded. 

The shock was delivered directly to his spine and once Dick can think long enough to really understand what's happened, he's quietly making an assessment of himself. He's not paralyzed, his nerves are very much functioning, he has no motor impairments. He's not having a heart attack. As painful as it was, _is_ , it seems to just be skin deep. That being said, it's very, very painful. There's a distant, phantom sensation of electricity jumping across his back and he doesn't want to move anymore than he has to as that just makes it worse. 

All he can really do is grip the edge of the table and try to breathe so he doesn't pass out. 

It takes him a few seconds to realise someone's talking to him, Artemis asking if he's okay. Jason's yelling at Wally who, in return, is yelling back. Dick nods slowly. He'll be fine he just- needs a couple minutes to recover from his surprise electrical branding. Jason snaps at Wally not to touch him _again_. 

Once Dick can get his brain and mouth to cooperate with one another, he speaks. He doesn't think it's in Spanish but he's so disoriented, he doesn't actually know. Wally asks what he says to which Jason irritably translates, regardless of what language it's actually in, “he wants treatment for the fuckin’ electrical burns you just gave him.” Dick has no idea what kind of voltage he's been touched with but either way, he needs something to make the pain stop. 

Between all the yelling at one another the three of them do, they make some sort of attempt at tending to his back. Eventually, enough pain subsides that Dick can stand again without crumpling like a paper ball. He walks himself to the infirmary as his friends go back to arguing. 

Dick knows Wally didn't mean it, accidents happen and Dick isn't mad, but it's not like Wally actually apologises for it either. 

Later, he comments about how cool the scar is at least.

Most of his memorable scars are from accidents. The two on his knee, Dick still isn't completely sure were. One's surgical, long and baring staple marks, from where they cut him open on two separate occasions to replace his left knee cap. The other is smaller, right beside it, where a sword shattered his knee cap. They're not as faded, rough and healed poorly from being reopened too many times. 

Dick is actually very good with a sword. He was trained by the best, after all. 

He’s seventeen when Slade shatters his knee cap. A training accident. Even now Dick can't really think of a reason Slade would have _intentionally_ tried to lame him all things considered but, even now, the scar is so clean and precise, it's hard to believe it was accidental. It's not the first or last time Slade hurts him. 

Slade knows when it happens, he had to have, but he doesn't stop, forcing Dick to continue to defend himself while he's bleeding all over the place. Perhaps another ‘lesson’ about how real enemies won't take it easy on him even if he's injured- one Dick already knows well and ones he's fairly certain he knows which side of Slade lies on. He wants Dick to use lethal force and when Dick inevitably doesn't, tells him to take himself to the hospital. 

Dick knows he can't actually hurt Slade, not permanently anyways, but it's the principal of the matter just like taking himself to the hospital is. He could call an ambulance, he could call a car, he could call a friend, but he doesn't. Not wanting to kill people doesn't make him weak. There are many things Slade has convinced him of but that's not one of them. 

He _walks_ to the hospital with a shattered knee. 

They replace it and Dick loses almost all of his range of movement in that leg. It's hard for him to get used to and even harder when Slade is constantly pushing him to his limits. Every time the wounds reopen, Dick sits and tends to them himself. He's so used to having to restitch his knee, for years after whenever he picks up a needle his knee aches.

Bruce doesn't find out for a long time. It's not that he doesn't notice, even less that he doesn't care, but rather Dick just doesn't come home. Bruce thinks he's with the Titans and the Titans think he's with Bruce and no one wants to ask too many questions, no one wants to press too hard or draw attention to anything strange he's doing because they know how hard Jason’s death was on him. 

Slade makes it easy to get away with things. Maybe that's _why_ Dick stays around for as long as he does. 

It's not until after he and Slade have a falling out and Dick picks up a new identity, Nightwing, that Bruce finally finds out about his knee. By then, he's recovered and it's healed but he had never gotten back his range of movement- the replacement they put in just couldn't handle his natural contortionism. Bruce designs a new one for him and oversees the second surgery to replace it. 

Bruce makes him stay down while he recovers and eventually, he gets his full flexibility back. Dick's knee hurts when it rains now. 

It rains a lot in Gotham. 

Being Robin and being ‘Deathstroke’s apprentice’ and being Nightwing, Dick learned a long time ago how to protect his face. His body is riddled with scars but for much of his life, his face has remained untouched. With the exception, of course, of the small jagged scar that crosses the bridge of his nose.

He's nineteen. He's been Nightwing for a year, technically, but with his knee the way it is all he really does is solve cases from home while his dad and the _new_ Robin run around Gotham and his friends all carry on their lives like Jason never existed. 

The bachelorette party he was entertaining offered him to stay and party with them, an offer Dick gets a lot, and he agreed. Saying no to free drinks and a good time isn't something he's keen on. Waking up in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar lady’s panties around his neck isn't unfamiliar to him lately. He drank so much for so long last night, he's still a little drunk when he wakes up. 

All Dick can vaguely hear is the woman next to him frantically saying something about her husband as she pushes him out of bed. He mumbles back a groggy, “you have a husband” as he tries to get off the floor. It's not the first, and it's definitely not the last, time someone has used him to cheat on their significant other. Dick has a rule about sleeping with married people and people in committed relationships but he doesn't have a rule about asking. 

If he can't tell and they don't mention it, he assumes they're single and not cheating. An assumption he should stop making. 

There's a mostly empty bottle of whiskey laying on the floor that Dick finishes off before, again, trying to get to his feet. He searches himself for his phone before remembering he didn't bring it with him and he's naked. A large man appears and suddenly there's yelling and Dick is just trying to find his pants. He spent most of the night in his underwear so he doesn't actually know where his pants are. 

The man aggresses on him suddenly, yelling at _him_ now. Dick's just not drunk enough to not be hungover so this is particularly unpleasant. He demands to know who Dick is and Dick tries to calm the situation. Instead his dumb, drunk brain tells his mouth to say, “the best fuck your wife’s ever had”. 

Before Dick can follow up with, “and I can be yours next”, the guy cold clocks him in the face. The thick sports ring he wears not only breaks Dick's nose but tears into his skin. He catches himself on the edge of the bed and suddenly he's very sober again. Dick stumbles back to his feet and irritably he says, “don't hit me again”. 

So the man, of course, tries to hit him again. 

Dick knocks him out of the side table and the woman is yelling at him now. He's naked and covered in blood and nauseous when the police arrive. All Dick wants is to go home but instead, all three of them get taken into custody. 

It's nearly an hour of sitting in a holding cell in his underwear with a broken nose before they let him call anyone. It's only five minutes before Bruce is there reading the cops the riot act about detainees rights and how leaving Dick without medical attention or _clothes_ is in violation of so many of them. He never yells or raises his voice but he's billionaire Bruce Wayne; he doesn't have to. 

Bruce takes him home. He's not mad, he's not even disappointed, he rarely is with Dick. He's just worried and Dick can't blame him for that but there's not a lot he can do to stop Bruce from worrying, either. The only thing holding Dick together right now is some haphazard patch job of coping mechanisms. 

But he keeps looking over and that unsettles Dick more than anything and he looks back with a wince. Bruce pulls the mirror down and for the first time, Dick sees the new scar on his face. It's not very big or very deep, it's not even bleeding anymore, but Dick has a complete fucking meltdown. They have to pull over until Dick stops crying. 

His hyper sexuality gets worse from there. 

He's turns twenty the same time the right meds finally kick in. 

Dick is twenty three when he gets a pair of scars from Tarantula he pretends he doesn't remember. Small, on the front of his hip. “You don't have to think about it right now if you don't want to,” his therapist says so Dick doesn't. 

He's twenty four. He stares at the cut on his hand and wonder if it's going to scar. Things are hard and he's tired but-

Things are getting better. 


End file.
